Alright YOU!

If I owned anything Harry Potter I would be in a comfy padded room with no corners speaking to Dumbledore right now…

And I'm not…

It was the time of night when secrets prowled the corridors. Darkness seeped through the hallowed halls shrouding even the most mundane of beings in mystery. Shadows flitted silently; finished the unfinished…

Heels clacked along the stone passageway toward the Library. Lily Evans, straining under a pile of books, her once sharp green eyes, now dulled with pain, noted the absence of students in the hallways. Like a shadow herself she stole. Round corners, uncaring.

The truth was, there was little Lily cared for anymore.

It had been one month- one month since she had gotten the news. The terrible news that whipped through Hogwarts like warped lightening.

Mary MacDonald. Dead. Gone. The day before the Hogwarts Express was scheduled to leave King's Cross.

Mary MacDonald and her whole family. Wiped out on Voldemort's orders. Not deemed worthy to live Erased from the map, as if they had never been.

Mary MacDonald who, apart from Violet Clare, was the closest thing Lily held to her heart.

And now because of her death Lily held her closer that ever. Unwilling to relinquish that hold onto sanity. Because it was only the memory of her friend that kept her going through the day-through the motions of normalcy.

But while she clung onto her friend, and mourned for her passing. Lily suppressed the memories.

Memories that held keys.

She was running scared and she knew it. But what else could she do. How could she stop running when, the minute her memories caught up with her, she knew she would succumb? Her iron walls would splinter and she would be rendered powerless and vulnerable. Forced to accept the unacceptable. To-

To leave Mary behind.

How could she do that? When Mary had been her sister for six long years. She who had comforted Lily when her mother died, and who had always wanted the best for her.

Who had loved her unconditionally.

This year would have been their seventh year as sisters.

This year they would have been at the very top of the school. Oh how many plans had been made. Plans now rendered useless. Lists of loss.

Violet had taken Mary's List. Her legendary List of things to do before graduating. But Mary would never graduate. So Violet had undertaken them herself. The Shying Violet. Trying to fill the shoes Mary had left behind.

Lily knew she was being cruel. She knew it was Violets way of honoring their lost friend. Of mourning. And that Violet had loved Mary too.

But how could she not be cruel when the List was a painful reminder of what she had lost?

She knew Violet worried about her. Who didn't when Lily had become a mere shadow of her former self. When she spent every day in a blur-a waking dream. Detached- as if the experiences and emotion of the past month had belonged to someone else. Some other Lily-

-Whose heart was blackened and cracked.

In the first few days after Mary's death various people, students and teachers alike, had approached her. Offering condolences. Words of comfort. But Lily had brushed them all away, preferring to sit in her self-imposed confinement and mourn alone.

Battling her demons by her self…

Gradually they had left, bestowing upon her their pity. Before there were people trying to make her life easier. But in her anger and sorrow she had pushed them away. Now they left her alone, even Dumbledore, who had tried to help Lily more than anyone.

Even James Potter.

Lily smiled bitterly to herself as she realized the irony. That this was the one time she might have let him in, that he was gone. That when Mary had been the one urging her to give in, to give him a chance, it had been Mary's death that made him show his true feelings. That he had never cared for her-he had only thought in a game to convince Hogwarts most upstanding student to get down with the dogs.

But now that she had broken. Now that she bled, he was gone. Finally given her space when the only thing she truly needed was his characteristic intrusive behavior.

Now that she was finally tired of pretending to be perfect.

Of maintaining the effort it took to be a model student.

And tired of pushing everyone away.

There was no one to shake her. No one to make her see sense or help her back towards the light.

There was no one who wanted to walk next to the psycho. She had scared off any fellow mourners. Her appearance left no room for doubt that Lily Evans was breaking. And she was breaking. She was splintering piece by piece. The whole of Hogwarts knew that Lily Evans had lost something vital- that the cool façade that had served her so well through her days at Hogwarts was crumbling around her.

That strong masquerade that she had forever put on was lost as she stumbled through the dark. The darkness in her mind, in her head, and in her heart, was echoed in the shadowy corridors of Hogwarts during the witching hour. As she struggled to come to terms, to find raft, something to buoy her up while she struggled against the dark currents of her personal hell.

And as she stumbled foreword blindly, her books tumbled from her hands. They fell, as the tears finally fell from Lily's eyes.

Lily sank to the ground, crying, as she finally let go and sank beneath her hellish waves.

But out of the darkness, underwater, she saw a rare sun.

Someone who helped her up, and, as she stood their with her broken heart on her sleeve and in her tears, picked up each of her books as it were a lifeline and hand them to her gently, wiping tears from her face.

Lily looked up into the eyes of James Potter.

His eyes sparkled with some unseen light, sparkled golden. He had no doubt been Marauding the deserted halls, a mystery in himself.

The gentle expression in his eyes almost made Lily cry again. There it was what she had been looking for so long. The compassion she yearned for, that her lonely heart bled for

Her ears roared with joy, her heart sang along.

As she watched James saunter off, once more a part of the mysteries that immersed Hogwarts. She realized what Mary had so many years before her. That is wasn't that James thought Lily a challenge, or a prize to win, but that, just as she found herself being drawn to him, he was drawn to her. That there was more than physical attraction.

That James was another tired soul. That, like Lily, he was tired of always being strong. Tired of always being a Marauder.

And that Lily was the only one who could see past that.

3

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Also, a beta is needed, so if anyone has information on how, where, or why one might find those ever elusive, mythical creatures let me know! Please and Thank you!